Safe
by Ice Cube1
Summary: He knows what he promised her. And he still has every intention of following through. But the details on that plan may have gotten improved upon a little bit. Canon compliant missing scene. SPOILERS for 6x05


He sits in the bowels of the _Jolly Roger_ , atop a barrel of rum that has aged almost as much as he has. There is naught but a single candle to light the hold, and even its happy little flickers are almost enough to make him pinch out the flame.

Almost.

He can't stand the darkness. Not the physical manifestation that comes with being below the water line, nor with the emotional and metaphorical darkness that has lurked in the very being of his heart for so long.

When Emma made that choice for him, it nearly broke him - being consumed by the Darkness he had fought against for so long was almost enough to make him cave.

But her light - even when she was under the same curse as he was - it saved him.

It is the only thing that _can_ save him from himself.

She's waiting for him at the home he and Henry picked out for her. For them. It's his home now, too, with his chest of belongings (memories) safely stowed away in their bedroom. He can pick himself up, walk down the street and unlock the door with his key, and curl up on the couch with her and a moving picture show.

If only he could find the strength to stand.

There's much weighing on his shoulders tonight - too much to burden her with. Not now. _Especially_ not now. Not when she's having visions of her own death after she just got him back. Not when she was too terrified to tell him about what she was seeing - what she's still seeing on a regular basis if all of the unexplained times she'd just stopped can be attributed to this new curse.

She apologized for not trusting him, but he knows that's not entirely what happened. No one saves Emma Swan but Emma Swan, and that's a hard habit to break. He knows. He almost didn't let her save him in the Underworld for similar reasons.

But that isn't the worst of it. It isn't the heaviest thing holding him down here in the coldest, darkest part of his ship.

It's the object he's holding.

The weight of the shears in his hands is almost more than he can manage.

He had no intention of lying to her. And he still means to keep his promise. He'll keep them from falling into the wrong hands. He'll hide them where no one can find them.

Except for him.

There isn't a soul left alive who knows about Liam's safe. Not the one in the Captain's cabin where Belle is currently snoring away. Killian had the lock changed on that on a whim after one of his men tried to break into it one drunken evening after Milah's death.

He refuses to look down at that man's ring on his hand.

He refuses to think about the drawn out time between that man's last breath and realizing he could stop killing him.

No, not that safe.

With the way he and Liam were raised, with what had happened with Silver the day Liam went to buy their commissions, Killian's older brother had always kept a little extra set aside. This safe, the one Killian hadn't even known about until months after Liam was given back to the sea, this one will do to hold Emma's last salvation.

He wants to think that he won't use them unless she asks him to. He wants to think that when it comes down to it, he can be the hero she thinks he is and let her go. He wants to think that if it comes down to the end, he won't _accidentally_ let it slip to David or Snow that the shears are stashed just a quick drive away. A lost treasure just waiting for the opportune moment.

Pirate.

Killian sighs. He's not sure he can be as strong as Emma thinks he is. He rowed out into the harbor until he could barely see the lights from town, called out to an old acquaintance who could take the shears and hide them 20,000 leagues under the sea.

But he'd sat in that tiny little dinghy and waited, staring at the metal in his hands. There was nothing else he could do out there if he wanted to ensure that Gold or the Evil Queen couldn't summon them back with a spell.

It gave him too much time to think.

Time to think about Henry growing up without Emma. Time to think about how _he_ grew up without his own mother. About how many nights he'd lain awake in bed wishing for her to sing to him. How he could imagine only too well how Henry would feel if he became an orphan. Regina notwithstanding, the boy would have lost both of his biological parents, and Killian couldn't stand to think about the young man Henry is becoming having to overcome that blow.

He had time to think about how he, himself, would fare if they lost Emma. If she was stolen away from him just as surely as Liam, as _Milah_ , had been.

He hadn't realized just how lost in his own head he'd gotten until the tears were streaming down his cheeks - hot and fast. He'd lost everyone in his life. He couldn't lose Emma, too.

So he hadn't waited for Nemo. He'd hidden the shears in his jacket and rowed back to Emma - too caught up in needing to make sure that she was still there, still with him, still all right. He'd lied to her about the circumstances, but not about the intent.

No one would find the shears unless he wanted them to.

Finally fishing the key to Liam's safe out from its hiding place under a loose board, Killian stowed the shears away next to the pouch of money and the letter Liam had left him.

 _If you're reading this, little brother…_

Killian shut the door to the safe just as swiftly as he closed the padlock around the memory of Liam's last words to him.

The shears were safe, waiting to be needed - hopefully never spoken of again.

They wouldn't stop fighting. None of them. Not until Emma was safe and this latest threat was dealt with. They were stronger as a team, better as a team.

As a family.


End file.
